Quotes About Consciousness

It is only now, in the present crisis of modern man, whose over accentuation of the conscious, cortical side of himself has led to excessive repression and dissociation of the unconscious, that it has become necessary for him to 'link back" with the medullary region.

The fusion of areas of consciousness which for us are more or less clearly defined leads, as it were, to a perpetual game of hide-and-seek with ourselves and to a confusion of ego positions. Emotional instability, ambivalent pleasure-pain reactions, the interchangeability of inside and outside, of individual and group—all these result in an insecurity for the ego which is intensified by the powerfully emotional and affective "vectors" of the unconscious.

Consciousness has to resist these instinctive reactions because the ego is liable to be overpowered by the blind force of instinct, against which the conscious system must protect itself if development is to proceed.

Thus, as the ego develops, it is imperative to prevent a situation from arising in which the dynamic-emotional component of an unconscious image or archetype would drive the ego into an instinctive reaction and so overwhelm consciousness.

If the ego is to attain a condition of tranquillity in which to exercise discrimination, consciousness and the differentiated function must be as far removed as possible from the active field of emotional components. All differentiated functions are liable to be disturbed by them, but the disturbance is most evident in the case of thinking, which is by nature opposed to feeling and even more to emotionality.

Consciousness of the bond between the male opponents is the beginning of masculine self-consciousness.

the motto of all consciousness is determinatio est negatio.

Ego consciousness is a sense organ which perceives the world and the unconscious by means of images, but this image-forming capacity is itself a psychic product, not a quality of the world. Image formation alone makes perception and assimilation possible.

Ego-accentuation leads from the uroboric to the hermaphroditic, and so to the narcissistic stage, which is autoerotic at first and represents a primitive form of centroversion. The next stage is that of phallic-chthonic masculinity, dominated by the body sphere, and this in turn is succeeded by a masculinity in which the activity of consciousness has become the specific activity of an autonomous ego.

The rite of marriage derives from the part played by the king in the old fertility ritual. The union of the Earth Goddess with the god-king becomes the prototype of marriage, and only with the institution of this symbolic ritual did the act of sexual union, endlessly repeated for millions of years, begin to be understood consciously.

the initiate becomes an "ennoos," one who possesses nous, or whom the nous possesses, a "pneumaHkos." 71

But first we have to discuss the emotional situation, and to understand that this deed, though it manifests itself as the coming of light, and as the creation of the world and of consciousness, is vitiated by a sense of suffering and loss so strong as almost to offset the creative gain.

The margin of conscious alertness in modern man is relatively narrow, the intensity of his active performance is limited, and illness, strain, old age, and all psychic disturbances take their toll of this alertness.

is nevertheless a conflict between the developing ego consciousness and the world of instinct. The former must always put its own specific mode of behavior, which pursues very different aims, in place of collective and instinctive reaction, for the latter is by no means always in accord with the individual aims of the ego, nor with its preservation.

the group and group-consciousness were dominant…[the individual] was not an autonomous, individualized entity with a knowledge, morality, volition, and activity of its own; it functioned solely as a part of the group, and the group with its superordinate power was the only real subject.

The fact that, for the Great Mother, father and son are nothing but the fertilizing phallus can also be formulated from the masculine standpoint by saying that victor and victim are always the same: the triumphant sacrificer himself becomes a future sacrifice. Consciousness

This position of detachment is a primary condition of consciousness, and it is the essence of its functioning to intensify and differentiate this attitude still further.

Ego formation can only proceed by way of distinction from the nonego and consciousness only emerge where it detaches itself from what is unconscious; and the individual only arrives at individuation when he marks himself off from the anonymous collective.

Pain and discomfort are among the earliest factors that build consciousness. They are "alarm-signals" sent out by controversion to indicate that the unconscious equilibrium is disturbed.

From the union of the hero's ego consciousness with the creative side of the soul, when he "knows" and realizes both the world and the anima, there is begotten the true birth, the synthesis of both.

IN THE COURSE of Western development, the essentially positive process of emancipating the ego and consciousness from the tyranny of the unconscious has become negative.

The important thing is that consciousness as the acting center precedes consciousness as the cognitive center, in the same way as ritual precedes myth, or magic ceremonial and ethical action precede the scientific view of the world and anthropological knowledge.

Containment in the uroboros and its supremacy over the ego mean, on the bodily level, that ego and consciousness are at the outset continually at the mercy of the instincts, impulses, sensations, and reactions deriving from the world of the body.

The center common to conscious action through the will and to conscious knowledge through cognition is, however, the ego.